something of this spirit, we cannot have a Church at all. How little, during eighteen hundred years, have the hearts of men been got to beat together! Nor can we say that this is the fault of the capitalists and the masters only, it is the fault of the servants and dependants also.

LECTURE XXIV.

April 18, 1852.

1 CORINTHIANS, xii. 31; xiii. 1-3.-"But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.-Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.—And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.-And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."

THE twelfth chapter of this Epistle discusses the gifts of the Spirit, the thirteenth contrasts them with the grace of Charity or Love, but the connection between the two is unintelligible unless the last verse of the former be joined to the first of the latter: it is the link between both chapters: "Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way." Now the more excellent way is Charity.

We will consider, then, the Christian estimate of gifts. I. In themselves.

II. In reference to graces.

I. The way in which a Christian should esteem gifts.

Let me first show that this rule applies to ourselves;

for it might be doubted, since the Corinthian gifts were in part what we call miraculous, while ours are natural. But you will find that in all essential particulars the resemblance is complete. The gifts of the Church of Corinth were bestowed according to God's pleasure: they were "divided to every man severally as He willed." They were profitable to others: "The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." They were not the highest perfection of human nature, for a man might have them and yet perish. So is it with ours: we have gifts freely granted, capable of profiting others, and yet capable of being separated from personal or saving holiness. Therefore, to all such gifts essentially coinciding with the nature of the Corinthian gifts, the Apostle's rule must apply; and his rule is this-" Covet earnestly the best gifts."

First, then, consider what a gift is. It is that in which our main strength lies. One man is remarkable for intellectual, and another for moral qualifications. One is highly sensitive, and another firm and unimpressionable. One has exquisite taste, and another capacity for business. One nation is inventive, and another, like the English, persevering and able to improve inventions. It is well for us to dwell on this, because in our unchristian way of viewing things we are apt to forget that they are gifts, because they seem so simple. But all God's gifts are not sublime. You would all acknowledge prophecy to be a gift, but St. Paul says the humblest faculties are also gifts. The eye is precious, but the foot, in its way, is no less so. Next, observe that all these are gifts, but sometimes we fancy they are not, because sad and melancholy moralists

remind us that these things are vain.

Beauty is fleeting, such men cry; strength is soon but labour and sorrow. Sound sense doth not save: "Life is thorny, and youth is vain. The path of glory leads but to the grave." A noble name, an honoured position, an existence of fame, what are these but dreams? True, all these are transient; and because so, we are forbidden to set our hearts upon them: "the world passeth away, and the lust thereof." But still, in spite of moralizing, men covet them. And the Apostle says it is right: God gave them: do you honour Him by despising them? They are good, but not the higher good. Good so long as they are desired in subservience to the greater good, but evil if they are put in the place of this.

Thirdly, remark that they are to be earnestly cultivated. There is a mistake into which religious people are apt to fall, but which the Apostle avoids: and this is one of the negative marks of his inspiration. The Apostles were never fanatical; but ordinary men, when strongly influenced, exaggerate. Now, the world makes very little of charity; and religious men, perceiving the transcendent excellence of this grace, make very little of talents: nay, some depreciate them as almost worthless. They talk contemptuously of the "mere moral man." cleverness and gifts of intellect, as in themselves bad and dangerous. They weed the finest works of human genius from their libraries. And hence the religious character has a tendency to become feeble, to lose all breadth of view, and all manly grasp of realities. Now, on the contrary, St. Paul prays that the whole soul (ux), the natural man as well as the spirit, may "be preserved blameless till the coming of Christ."

They speak of

And again he allows a distinction—" the best gifts."

The same Apostle who so earnestly urged contentment with the gifts we have, and forbade contemptuous scorn of others with feeble gifts, bids us yet to aspire. And just as St. Peter said, "Add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance;" so would St. Paul have said, "Add to your nobility of rank, nobleness of mind; to your naturally strong constitution, health by exercise; to your memory, judgment; to your power of imitating, invention." He permits no dream of fantastic equality, no pretence that all gifts are equal, or all alike precious. He never would have said that the builder who executed was equal to the architect who planned.

Be contented, yet aspire: that should be the faith of all, and the two are quite compatible. And there arises from such a belief the possibility of generous admiration: all the miserable shutting-up of ourselves in superciliousness is done away. Desirous of reaching something higher, we recognise and love what is above ourselves; and this is the condition of excellence, for we become that which we admire.

II. The estimate of gifts in comparison with graces.

They are less excellent than charity. They are not the perfection of our nature. He who treads the brilliant road of the highest accomplishments is, as a man, inferior to him who treads the path of Love. For in the spiritual world a man is measured not by his genius, but by his likeness to God. Intellect is not divine; Love is the most essential of all the attitudes of God. God does not reason, nor remember, but He loves. Thus, to the Apostle's mind, there was emptiness in eloquence, nothingness in

knowledge and even in faith, uselessness in liberality and sacrifice, where Love was not. And none could be better qualified than he to speak. In all these gifts he was preeminent; none taught like him the philosophy of Christianity. None had so strong a faith, nor so deep a spirit of self-sacrifice. In no other writings are we so refined and exalted by "the thoughts which breathe and words that burn." And yet, in solitary pre-eminence above all these gifts, he puts the grace of Love.

LECTURE XXV.

April 25, 1852.

1 CORINTHIANS, xiii. 4-13.-"Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.-Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;-Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;-Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.-Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.-But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

IT is a notable circumstance that the most elaborate description given in Scripture of the grace of Charity is from the pen, not of St. John, who was pre-eminently the man of Love, but of the Apostle Paul, whose great characteristic was his soaring Faith.

To each of the Apostles was given a peculiar work;

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